Perplexity AI's New ‘Pages’ Feature Lets You Generate Articles Instantly

By now, you might already be familiar with Perplexity — the company that challenges Google as the world’s most powerful search engine powered by artificial intelligence. Recently, Perplexity introduced a groundbreaking feature that not only conducts research but also creates comprehensive articles.

This feature, called Perplexity Pages, is rapidly gaining attention and is even being dubbed as “AI Wikipedia” due to its structured, Wikipedia-like layout.

What is “Perplexity Pages”?

Perplexity Pages is a new tool that transforms a researched topic into a well-structured, beautifully formatted article with ease. Users can publish the generated article in Perplexity’s library of user-generated content and share it directly with their audience with just one click.

For example, this Page about Steve Jobs showcases a clean and organized layout.

What do you think about the layout?

It looks really clean and well-structured. The first time I saw it, it kind of felt like Notion more than a Wikipedia page.

In addition to text, Perplexity Pages can include a banner image generated by AI, which users can replace with their own if desired.

How it works

To start using Perplexity Pages, navigate to the Perplexity dashboard and hover over the Library tab, where you’ll find the new “Pages” option.

Note: Currently, Pages is only available to paying users. If you don’t see the “Page” option in the Library tab, check your subscription status.

Select Your Topic and Audience: Enter your topic and select the target audience for the Page. You can choose from three options:

• Anyone: Intended for anyone to understand
• Beginners: Optimized for beginners to understand without prior knowledge
• Experts: Uses more technical terms and references advanced concepts.

For non-technical topics, it’s best to set the audience to “Anyone.” For more technical subjects, opt for “Experts.”

Begin the generation and wait for a couple of seconds.

Generate the Article: Start the generation process and wait a few seconds. The AI will scour the internet for the most relevant information and compile it into the Page. Users can modify the content, add more sections, and include images as needed.

What’s great about the published Pages is their Source Traceability. Easily view and manage sources for each section to ensure information accuracy.

In the top right corner, you can preview or publish your draft. You can share the published Page on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), WhatsApp, Facebook, or by copying the link to share elsewhere.

Note: If you can’t access Perplexity Pages right now, it’s because the feature is slowly getting rolled out to select users in select countries.

Editing and Customization

Perplexity Pages offers extensive customization options, making it more than just an auto-writing tool. Users can manually edit the articles to enhance their quality:

• Change the image: Swap out the default image with one of your own, or have the AI generate a new image based on your text.
• Edit sections: Rearrange, delete, or add more sections to your page.
• Adjust the layout: Choose how you want your images and text to appear.
• Add media: Insert images, videos, or tables to make your article more engaging.

Interactive Features

One of the coolest aspects of Perplexity Pages is the ability for readers to ask follow-up questions.

For instance, if you’re reading an article about “Quantum Machine Learning” and want to know the current state of Quantum Computing, you can prompt Perplexity to provide updated search results related to the original Page.

Prompt: What’s the current state of Quantum Computing?

Perplexity will redirect you to a new search result page with an indicator that it’s a follow-up to an existing Page.

This interactive feature enhances the reader’s experience by providing continuous learning opportunities.

Why is Perplexity Pages a Game-Changer (Or Is It?)?

Perplexity Pages can significantly speed up the content creation process. However, this convenience may lead to an overabundance of low-quality content on the internet.

Does over-reliance on AI tools risk diminishing our own critical thinking and research abilities?

Additionally, while Perplexity Pages can create detailed and well-cited articles, the sheer volume of AI-generated content could contribute to a cycle of AI content feeding off other AI content, potentially diluting the quality of information available online.

How much does Perplexity Pro cost?

Pages is part of the free version of Perplexity but you can only do 5 searches per day. If you want to top up the search credits, consider upgrading to the Professional tier which costs $20 per month.

The paid version gives you the following benefits:

• Unlimited Pro Search: Access to their most powerful search engine for detailed answers to complex questions.
• Unlimited File Uploads: Ability to ask questions about images, documents, and more, using advanced AI models like Claude 3 and GPT-4 or GPT-4o.
• Upgraded AI Models: Access to the latest AI models like GPT-4, Claude 3, and Perplexity for better answers and a longer context window.
• API Credits: $5 monthly credit for their text generation API, which allows for up-to-date information and low latency.

Final Thoughts

I won’t deny that I am excited to experiment and potentially (and responsibly) use this article writer from Perplexity. I love how it adds detailed citations and can add more details directly inside the editor.

However, I won’t ignore the concern that this could lead to an increase in “expert” blog spam and a cycle of AI-generated content feeding off other AI-generated content, potentially diluting the quality of information available online.

Sure, you can argue that ChatGPT can access the internet and generate full-blown articles. But the real advantage of Perplexity is its ability to add better citations and you are not locked in OpenAI models because you can switch to other models like Claude Opus from Anthropic or Gemini Advanced from Google.

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